Birmingham Planned Parenthood clinic placed on probation

Alabama health officials have put the Bir­mingham clinic of Planned Parenthood of Alabama on a year-long probation after an inspection revealed multiple problems, in­cluding not adequately verifying parental consent from minors getting abortions and not reporting a potential case of child sexual abuse.

In that potential abuse case, a 13-year-old girl reported that she became sexually active at 12 and came in for two abortions within four months. She was not asked by staff about potential abuse, and her case was not reported to authorities.

"If she was being abused, you give her a chance to be rescued from that situation," said Rick Harris, director of health pro­vider standards for the Alabama Depart­ment of Public Health.

Planned Parenthood of Alabama has en­tered into an agreement with the health department promising to deliver, by Tues­day, a plan to correct its deficiencies.

"We take concerns about the quality of our services seriously, and we have en­tered into an agreement with the state out­lining steps we will take to assure that all of the state's concerns are addressed," said Felicia Brown-Williams, spokeswo­man for Planned Parenthood of Alabama.

The health department's investigation started last summer, after an anti-abortion group based in California posted on the Internet a tape of a sting operation at the Birmingham clinic. In that recording, made a year prior, a UCLA college student pretended to be a 14-year-old girl seeking a secret abortion after getting pregnant with her 31-year-old boyfriend. The Planned Parenthood worker told her she would not report the relationship, although state law requires reporting stat­utory rape, and that the manager might be able to help her get the abortion without her parents knowing.

Alabama Attorney Gen­eral Troy King looked into the case, but the 12-month statute of limitation on the offense had expired by the time King's office knew of the tape, said Chris Bence, King's chief of staff. Public Health, however, took the tape as a complaint and started an investigation.

A survey revealed that:

> In nine out of nine cases tested, the clinic did not get girls ages 13-15 to authenticate the signature of the parent providing con­sent for the abortion. In one case, the person who signed the consent for a 15-year-old girl provided an expired driver's license of a person with a different last name and address from the girl's. A subsequent review of Alabama birth records showed that person was not listed as a parent.

> In one of two cases sampled, clinic workers didn't look into or report a case that could have involved abuse.

> The clinic did not have records logging after-hours calls by patients. Without such records, the clinic would be unable to identify infection problems or bad outcomes, surveyors said.

In the consent decree, Planned Parenthood agreed to measures to verify that the person consenting to the minor's abortion is in­deed the parent, including having a birth certificate of the patient or having a legal document showing guardi­anship. Further, the person consenting must show a document identifying the person is who he or she pur­ports to be.